Road habit of Nepalese

Road construction is one of the important infrastructure for socio-economic development in Nepal. May be because of the fact that the first car enter capital on shoulder of men, road is not meant for vehicles only. People use/misuse highways in different aspects. People walk and cross highways as they like even without looking either sides. Nepalese highways are in maximum use with construction of residential and shopping buildings at both sides, leaving cattle on road, letting children to play, platform for husking rice or wheat and many more. Not only the road, people also use other resources to their optimum capacity. For example, people travel not only on seats of bus, they also use hood and doors for travel. People display and sell/buy things along road. Meat products are displayed along dusty roads without health hazard consideration. Only the vehicular roads are with these problems. However, the walking trails are peace, dust and pollution free, and with beautiful scenery.

Three mermaids of Norway

Drøbak is a small city lying in the Oslofjord. Oslofjord is a bay in the South East of Oslo, Norway. The city is very beautiful with lake like water view of the fjord. The fjord serves as a water road for all the ships and boats to and from Oslo. Last week, I had a visit to this place again as it was summer. A girl is reading while resting on the rock rooted deep down the water. Three mermaids with different poses are sitting on a rock lying adjacent to Drøbak Aquarium. But this mermaids statue is not popular compare to a statue of 'the Little Mermaid' of Copenhagen harbour in Denmark.

Roses for you!

Roses are the symbols of love and beauty. Roses are gift to lover, God and even soul and spirit. May be due to its colour, symbolic meaning and softness, it is used as national flower, national symbol and commercial trade mark by many countries and people. The colour of roses symbolises different meaning. It may be love, friendship, peace and so on... It is you to decide which rose you like among the following four ones. The pictures of these roses are taken from the rose garden at Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Aas, Norway.

Agricultural landscape of Norway

With green fields of wheat and potatoes, one might be confused whether Norway is an agricultural country or not. I am also not sure but due to its physical and climatic condition, it might be not. The arable and permanent cropland is also less than 3% of the total land area. The crops like barley, wheat, oats, potatoes and hay for animals are only grown during summer while thick snow covers whole land during winter. I came to know that Norway exports milk, fish and meat products and imports fruits, vegetables, and grains. The landscape pictures with wheat and strawberry fields are of summer. Fruits like apples and cherries are seen along the road sides and in home gardens but no commercial production of them.

Rhododendron: Gurans in Nepali

I have three posts on general information on Rhododendron. If you are interested on scientific nomenclature, here is it.
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Ericales
Family: Ericaceae
Genus: Rhododendron L.
Species: (depends, e.g., arboreum)

Local name: Lali gurans in case of the national flower of Nepal which looks similar to the first picture in structure but has the colour like to the second picture.

I came to know that Rhododendron is being protected and conserved through local initiatives. Click here to see the activities of that project and to know the names of different Rhododendron flowers with the help of picture.

Rhododendron from Norway

Rhododendron is widely distributed species (growing from Northern to Southern hemisphere) though higher diversity is found in Himalaya. The flower is also cultivated as ornamental due to evergreen nature of plant and different shapes, size and coloured flowers. These are the snaps of some of the ornamental Rhododendrons in Norway.

Rhododendron - Nepal's national flower

Rhododendron is a beautiful flower with different colours and shapes. The Greek translation of Rhododendron means 'Rose tree'. However, Rhododendron may be small shrub to tall tree (up to 12 m). The hills of Nepal are coloured red, white or pink during the blooming season of Rhododendron. This flower also got national recognizing as national flower in Nepal. The genus and species which is dark red in colour is Rhododendron arboreum which is called as 'Lali Gurans' in Nepali. I will be posting the pictures of different Rhododendrons from Norway. Sorry, I don't know their species name.